The Benefit of Hindsight
by PreTitlesSequence
Summary: When a crack in time opens up in Camelot, the characters of Series 4 come face to face with their past selves. Cue madness, spoiling the future, and an awful lot of arguments.


_A/N Hello, and welcome to The Benefit of Hindsight!_

_This fic was partially inspired by the fic 'Dear Past Self' by KittyRin, so go check that out if you haven't already! So, here's what's going to be happening here. Each major character - from post series 4 - will get a chance to talk to their series 1 selves (from about halfway through series 1), so you can probably guess who those people will be. I'll also take suggestions, provided they fit to the two rules below._

_And those two rules for characters in this fic are... (1 Dead characters aren't allowed, so no Uther, Lancelot, Morgause, and (2 They have to have appeared in at least thirteen episodes, so one-episode wonders like Freya, Mithian and Annis aren't allowed. And they have to be interesting to write - Elyan (don't hate me!) falls foul of this one._

_Also, don't take this fic seriously. Probably not a good idea._

_OBLIGATORY DISCLAIMER: I don't own Merlin - if I did, it wouldn't have macde it past series one._

**Spoilers for pretty much every episode ever follow.**

**CAMELOT, 950 AD**

It was an ordinary summer's night in Camelot. Well, as ordinary as it gets in Camelot. King Arthur was pretending to write a speech while Merlin rather unsubtly polished Arthur's armour with magic, about ten metres away. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a huge explosion was heard, followed by the loudest (and most annoying) ringing Arthur, or Merlin had ever heard. Arthur was knocked to the floor, clutching his ears as he went, while Merlin sniggered at the writhing King on the floor.

_Twenty excruciating seconds later_

Arthur climbed to his feet. ''What was that?'' he asked Merlin. Merlin shrugged. ''Why are you looking at me like that?'' Holding back laughter, Merlin replied ''Nothing, Sire.''

Arthur's eyes narrowed. ''Did I...?''

''Yes, Sire. Yes you did.''

**CAMELOT, 945 AD**

There was a fairly heated argument going on in the throne room. An ear-splitting ringing sound had gone off ten minutes earlier, and Uther, after the recent griffin incident, was sure that it had something to with griffins, or a griffin-related creature. Prince Arthur, on the other hand, wasn't quite sure.

''Father, I don't think that sounded like a griffin. '', Arthur replied, sighing at Uther's slightly over-the-top paranoia. While Arthur wasn't really bothered about the whole thing and put it down to something in the lower town (Arthur, despite claiming to be the most intelligent man in the kingdom, wasn't the sharpest tool in the box), Uther was rigid, sweating as he imagined the town being consumed by a massive griffin who made ringing noises.

''Arthur, for the last time, it was a griffin. That sounded exactly like the griffin did before.''

''Father, that sounded like the opposite of a griffin, I'm not sure why you think it's a griffin, anyway.'', Arthur replied, and the argument flared up all over again.

Not many people in the castle got much sleep that night - especially Merlin, who kept hearing slightly creepy whispering noises in his sleep, that sounded oddly like a deeper voiced version of himself. And since he wasn't going to be getting any sleep any time soon (Uther was now convinced that it was Arthur who did it, and Arthur was trying to calm the confused King down), he decided to have a look at what the sound really was.

It didn't take long. The whooshing sounds only got louder as he made his way out of the castle, and the sounds ended up leading him to just outside the Great Dragon's cave. And finally, in front of him, he saw what the sound really was. And it wasn't very good at all.

In front of him, there was a crack in mid-air, and through it, he could see what looked like the same corridor he was in, only slightly older. And through it, he could hear footsteps. Someone was coming. A figure came into view, and at that point, Merlin was lost for words. Because through the tear, he could see an older version of himself.

_Please review, it makes me write faster and write more chapters! Constructive criticism is welcome - there's a lot of improving that needs to be done - but please be nice about it! If this chapter gets a decent enough response, I'll upload chapter two, which is Merlin's chapter, within a week._

_PTS out._


End file.
